Mateen
Claimed Loyalty to Several Rival Groups

The
relatively straightforward narrative of the Sunday morning Orlando
attack, a single, ISIS-inspired gunman acting on the basis of the
group’s anti-gay policies, seems to be falling apart with the
latest reports dramatically confusing the matter, and painting gunman
Omar Mateen is a much different light.

After
yesterday’s shock at the ordeal began to clear, patrons at the
attacked nightclub, Pulse, discovered something incredible, and
totally absent from the initial reports. Mateen wasn’t some
unfamiliar attacker, but rather
a “regular” at the bar, who had been coming in
for at least three years.

A
repeat visitor who used to drink to excess at Pulse, saying he
couldn’t at home because his family was “really strict,” Mateen
was also on a gay dating app used by
other patrons of the club, and one man reported Mateen had exchanged
messages with him and a friend.

A
former classmate of Mateen’s at the police academy said that he
believed Mateen to be gay “but
not open about it,” and
that Mateen had asked him out “romantically.”

Seddique
Mateen, Omar’s father and self-proclaimed President of the
Transitional Government of Afghanistan, had claimed that Omar was
extremely outspoken in his opposition to gay people, and expressed
disgust at seeing two men kissing recently in Miami.

The
two stories don’t exactly add up, but then a lot of things don’t
add up about the Mateen story, particularly the government narrative
of him as an apparently random person who got “radicalized
by the Internet” despite
not having any apparent ties to any terror groups.

Indeed,
the conflicting reports about Mateen’s “signs of radicalization”
suggest he hadno
more than a tenuous grasp on
who these Islamist factions he claimed loyalty to actually were, and
had at different times claimed to be affiliated with wildly different
groups.

The
reports of Mateen claiming allegiance to ISIS amid the attacks are
well known, but he also mentioned ties to the Boston bombers, the
Tsarnaev brothers, who were said to have been inspired by an al-Qaeda
magazine, as well as US suicide bomber Moner Mohammed Abusalha, who
was a bomber for al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which is actually fighting
against ISIS in Syria.

The
FBI says they concluded Mateen’s claim of ties to the Tsarnaev’s
was made up by him, and believe he had no more than tenuous ties to
Abusalha. Mateen appeared keen to present himself as much better
connected than he ever was.

That
is not in keeping with any of the other “ISIS-inspired” types who
have been publicized in recent years, who at the very least appeared
to be somewhat clear on what ISIS is, and certainly understood the
difference between Sunni and Shi’a Islam.

The
reports from people who knew him, whether co-workers, his ex-wife, or
fellow club-goers, all tell some pretty similar stories, presenting
Mateen as a man extremely prone to anger and quick to threaten
violence at the slightest provocation.

During
his time guarding the PGA village, co-worker Daniel Gilroy says
he “talked
about killing people all the time,”
and was in a state of “just constant anger. His ex-wife presented
him as quick to violence, and extremely abusive.

Even
the Pulse patrons who remember him say he would drink to excess and
become loud and belligerent. One described him pulling a knife on
somebody for telling a joke about religion. He apparently had to be
removed from the club several times

The
truth about Mateen is likely far more complicated than anyone
realized. His claim of ISIS ties are likely to be self-invented, just
as his claim to know the Tsaernev brothers, or his claim before that
to be a member of Hezbollah. The real question, and the one that we
might never know for sure is, who exactly was Omar Mateen?

Orlando
Shooter Was Reportedly a Regular at Pulse and Had a Profile on Gay
Dating App

Early
Sunday morning, Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people at a gay
nightclub in Orlando, perpetrating the deadliest mass shooting in
U.S. history. Mateen, his father explained the next day, had
repeatedly been
angered by the sight of
two men kissing. But according to witnesses, Mateen was also a
regular at the club and exchanged messages with at least one gay man
on a gay dating app.

“It’s
the same guy,” Chris Callen, who performs under the name Kristina
McLaughlin, told
the Canadian Press.
“He’s been going to this bar for at least three years.”

Ty
Smith, who also goes by the name Aries, also said he’d seen Mateen
being escorted drunk from the club, Pulse, on multiple occasions.

“(He’d
get) really, really drunk... He couldn’t drink when he was at
home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict... He
used to bitch about it,” Smith told the Canadian Press.

“Sometimes
he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and
other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,”
Smith also explained to
the Orlando Sentinel, which
spoke with at least four clubgoers who remembered seeing Mateen at
Pulse at least a dozen times. “We didn’t really talk to him a
lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times... He
told us he had a wife and child.”

Both
Callen and Smith, who are married, tell the Canadian Press they
stopped speaking to Mateen after he threatened them with a knife,
apparently after someone made a joke about religion.

“He
ended up pulling a knife,” Callen said. “He said if he ever
messed with him again, you know how it’ll turn out.”

Mateen,
who was married in 2009, was abusive
and unstable,
his ex-wife says. They were married for just a few months before her
parents rescued her from their home in Florida, leaving most of her
belongings behind. It’s still unclear if he was married again after
their divorce was finalized in 2011.

Omar
Mateen committed the most horrific act of anti-gay violence on U.S.
soil. But there was a time when he had gay friends, a high school
classmate says.

FORT
PIERCE, Florida — Years before he shot up an Orlando gay club in
what became the largest mass shooting in American history, Omar
Mateen regularly picked up lunch from a drag queen at Ruby Tuesday.
He may have even gone to see a drag show or two, a former high school
classmate told The Daily Beast.

About
10 years ago, Mateen, a few years out of high school, was working at
the supplement store GNC. Samuel King, a year ahead of him in high
school, was working next door at the restaurant chain. Mateen was a
few years out of playing football in high school while King, who is
openly gay, had long, flowing extensions, and prettier hair than most
of his female co-workers.

“He
always had a smile on his face,” King told The Daily Beast on
Sunday.